Initially I was quite put off when I read what NEM revealed about the Microsoft contract for Azure. Why would people, developers, give up their rights to the thing they created?

But now I am wondering what rights the developers have with regard to an open source project. Rights that cannot be enforced are rights that cannot be claimed, right?

It makes sense that the Qora devs and even the investors would not want to sign away their rights to use the code or deploy the blockchain in whatever ways they see fit. But if Microsoft, or anyone else, can simply clone the code based on what is open source, then what does it mean to either keep or give up rights to this particular version of the code and this particular instantiation of the Qora blockchain?